Monthly Archives: February 2014

So – you’re off to travel Route 66 and flying into Chicago. Fantastic! Route 66 begins in the Windy City, and it is so worth spending a couple of nights here to at least see some of the sights. This is not a comprehensive guide to all that Chicago has to offer. Here’s our guide of things to do if you have 1 full day in Chicago before you hit the road:

1. Take the ‘L’ train

No trip to Chicago is complete without a ride on the iconic Elevated train. Made famous from countless movies, it’s a kind of transport unique to us Brits. It really makes you feel a part of the city, it’s a great way to get around and it’s cheap too! We loved it.

2. Eat a meal with live Jazz piano playing

This is the very piano that we listened to in the Rosebud Prime restaurant where we ate on our first night in Chicago. I’d love to say that we sought out the best jazz Chicago had to offer, but in reality we found the restaurant closest to our hotel. We were delighted that there was live music – it really made the atmosphere – even if we were a little under-dressed for the venue. The food was great (we could only afford the bar menu – tee hee), and we were treated to a monster electrical storm as we left the restaurant. It was a fab evening.

3. Have breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s

Lou Mitchell’s is on Jackson Boulevard at the original starting place of Route 66. It’s become something of a tradition for those travelling the Mother Road to start with breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s. Lou’s opened in 1923 and Route 66 opened 3 years later. They have been serving food to travellers for 90 years! We had the most amazing breakfast there – each person gets a little packet of Milk Duds and you get prunes and orange for free with your food too. We didn’t have to eat for the rest of the day. Superb.

4. Check out Union Station

The beautiful Great Hall of Chicago Union Station is well worth a visit – it really is stunning – and puts you right back into the 20s when it was built. It has featured in lots of movies – Darren’s favourite is The Untouchables, set in 1920s Chicago in the Al Capone era of the city starring Kevin Costner (that movie with the famous ‘pram down the stairway’ scene). And considering it’s a railway station, it was actually quite a peaceful place!

5. Get a photo with the Route 66 ‘Begin’ sign

This is where it all begins. Over the years, new one way systems have been introduced in Chicago, and so the original start on Jackson Boulevard has now been moved to Adams Street. You can head west from there. This picture marked the start of our adventure – it was so exciting looking up at that sign and imagining what lay between us and the end sign all the way west in California.

6. Head to Millennium Park and ‘The Bean’

This incredible sculpture nicknamed ‘The Bean’ (its official name is ‘Cloud Gate’) appears completely seamless and plays around with light, bending it this way and that and reflecting a very different view of the city back at itself. You can just about see Darren in the bottom right hand corner of the 2nd picture. Part of what I loved about Chicago is the accessibility of its art. This piece is so tactile and encourages interaction. You can walk around it and under it – you can touch it and experiment with what the different curves do to your own reflection. It’s great fun.

7. Check out the Chicago Tribune Building

This building is scattered with 149 stone fragments from other buildings from across the world that were deemed historically or politically important by the reporters who brought them back to Chicago. You can find fragments from Westminster Abbey (pictured) and the Houses of Parliament, as well as places like the Berlin Wall and President Lincoln’s home in Springfield, IL. It’s loads of fun checking out all the different buildings that are featured – and the building’s neo-gothic architecture is truly stunning.

8. Take a stroll down the Magnificent Mile

The Magnificent Mile is Chicago’s largest shopping area – but is also home to the beautiful Chicago Water Tower and some of the tallest buildings in America (such as Trump Tower). You’ll also find the Tribune Building on this stretch.

9. Rest those weary legs on the shores of Lake Michigan

By the time we made it to Lake Michigan, we were really ready for a sit down. We found a nice tree to sit under and gazed out at the huge lake that makes Chicago feel like a city by the ocean. It was very peaceful here, and the surrounding area is all parks and cycle tracks and sculptures. If it wasn’t for the skyscrapers lining the waterfront, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in a small seaside village rather than the second city in the USA.

10. Grab a coffee on Navy Pier

We were gasping for a coffee and we stopped off at Bubba Gump Shrimp on Navy Pier. The sun had started to come out by now and the humidity levels were very high. We sat inside at the bar and got quizzed on Forrest Gump by barman John (the whole place is themed on the movie – and me being a huge Forrest Gump and Tom Hanks fan, that suited just fine). It was really a fun place and the service was impeccable. Navy Pier has many other options for meals and drinks and it’s a great walk down the pier with the attractions and amusements.

11. Go up to the Skydeck in Willis Tower

The Willis Tower (formally the Sears Tower) has 3 platforms that jut out from the building over 1300ft from ground level. It really is the most peculiar feeling. I’m in no way scared of heights (this is not a thing to do if you’re scared of heights!), but my brain was shrieking at me not to step out on the ledge. A totally counter-intuitive experience, it was really quite exhilarating. I got used to it after a while, but there are plenty of photos of me gingerly stepping out onto the ledge. Well worth the time spent here – we loved it. And you get great views of Chicago!

12. See the Chicago Theatre all lit up

I just had to get a picture of the iconic Chicago Theatre at night – unfortunately, I was unwell in the evening so Darren braved the dark unknown streets (what a hero!) to get this picture. I love it.

13. Go to bed tired & happy, excited for the road ahead.

So there you have it – a whistle stop tour of Chicago in just one day – and most of it was absolutely free (there is a fee for the Willis Tower – and food always costs money of course). We had a superb day, saw many of Chicago’s highlights, and we went to bed that night tired but happy – and extremely excited about hitting the road in the morning.

When we decided to drive Route 66, we didn’t really know much about it – only that it was a long drive, and Billy Connolly had done it on TV (check out his DVD here). Having done it (and we would do it again!) we can see why people want to drive this iconic American road. So here are our 10 reasons why it’s so worth driving the whole of Route 66.

It’s EPIC! The road spans 2451 miles (give or take) and crosses 8 States from Illinois in the Midwest to California on the Pacific coast.

2. It mostly skips the Interstate. Leave the monotony behind and venture out into lesser seen, small town America – the well trodden paths of the past. Sometimes, you find yourself in between the Interstate and Railroad being overtaken by trucks and trains whilst you sit back and cruise the open road!

3. You follow in the footsteps of American history. As westward expansion has taken place, thousands of people have trodden the path – from the Native Americans in the 1830s along the Trail of Tears when they were displaced from their lands, to the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s where families up and left their homes seeking a better life in golden California – the promised land of jobs and prosperity. From the road’s heyday in the 1950s and 60s where American families took to the road to holiday in the west, to the decline of the route (and a large proportion of the towns along the way) in the 1970s as the Interstate was born and people wanted a more direct route across America.

4. There are ghost towns! Along the way you find deserted towns that once thrived with travellers – now left as merely a reminder of the ‘good old days’.

5. There are thriving small towns too! Don’t worry – it’s not all death and decay of small town America. There are so many superb, friendly and vibrant places to stop and grab a coffee or a bite to eat. Small town America is in many ways the best of America! This picture is Darren and I in Winslow, AZ – a little town with an active population, small businesses and bit of tourism thrown in for good measure.

6. There are awesome diners all over the place! You don’t have to drive far to experience that most iconic of American ideas – the roadside diner. There are so many good ones along the route – trouble is you can’t stop at all of them for a coffee or it would take you a year to travel the road (plus the toilet stops would get incredibly tiresome after a while!). Our favourite diner was in Albuquerque – a proper 1950s affair complete with 1950s music and Route 66 memorabilia. The food was great too!

7. You meet fascinating people. There are so many people we met along the way who enriched our journey – there was Bob the Mayor of Pontiac, Gary and his wife Lena at their restored gas station in Missouri and Pete on the train to Santa Fe to name but a few. Each of them had great stories to tell of their lives that are so far removed from our own. The picture below is of me with Gary and Lena. They’re in their late 80s and are passionate about Route 66. Rather worryingly, Lena and I had matching shoes! You can check out their website here (and you may just spy some of our other photos from our visit with Gary there too!).

8. You get a taste of the diversity of America. This trip has it all. You have the metropolis of Chicago, the plains of the Ozarks through Missouri and Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, the joining Native American, Spanish and Western cultures of New Mexico, the deserts of Arizona and California and the beachfront city of Santa Monica. The sheer size of the country is staggering and each State is like a different country with different laws and landscape, culture and character. Travelling across the US from East to West is a constant journey of discovery.

9. There are so many quirky roadside attractions! From the Gemini Giant in Illinois to the Largest Rocking Chair in Missouri. From the Blue Whale of Catoosa in Oklahoma to the countless murals all along the route – there’s always something to make you jump out of the car for a break to gaze in wonder at the craziness of it all! This is a picture of the Largest Rocking chair – you can just about spot Darren at the bottom left!

10. It’s about the journey, not the destination. Yeah, I know it’s a cheesy line – but isn’t that the spirit of all the best road trips? Route 66 is made for road tripping – even though each day’s destination town is great in itself, the best bits are more often than not along the way. That little town. This coffee shop. That roadside attraction. This meal. It’s those moments that leave a lasting impression on you, those small surprises that you weren’t expecting, the people that you meet. It truly is the journey that makes travelling Route 66 from Chicago to LA the trip of a lifetime! I’m so glad we did it. Add it to your bucket list today!

We love travelling in the USA. Why? Well there are many reasons that I’m sure we will come to in later posts – but how did we come to want to go back to the same country over and over?

Well, Darren and I got married in September 2012, and when we were looking at honeymoons way back in March 2012, a dream I had held for a long time began to surface. I had basically forgotten about it, but the dream had lay dormant for 15 years.

In 1996 my friend and I had decided it would be a fun idea to go on a holiday together – so we were looking at going to Euro Disney. We had already seen the hotel we wanted and when we wanted to go – but my friend’s Dad heard about our plans and wasn’t happy with how much it was costing. He reckoned we could go to Disney World in Florida for almost the same amount of money – and perhaps the whole family could go along too?

I have had a long-standing love affair with the US. I don’t really know when it started. I love movies, am fascinated by the Apollo Space Programme and space exploration and am a big Tom Hanks fan. So I spent a lot of time growing up reading about American history in space books and watching American films. I began to dream of going there, but financially it was never going to happen. Then all of a sudden, I was going to Florida. I can’t tell you how excited I was.

So in August 1996, off we went. I had the most amazing time in Disney World, Epcot, Busch Gardens, and (the best bit) the Kennedy Space Centre. It was a dream come true and left me hungry for more. This is a hideously awful photo of me aged 17 (complete with Harry Potter specs and dreadful shorts – hey – it was really hot, ok!) at the Kennedy Space Centre. You can just make out the Shuttle Atlantis STS-79 that launched in September 1996 on the launch pad:

By the way, for all you space geeks out there (no? Just me then!) – this Shuttle was the only one to ever be rolled back to the Assembly building twice due to bad weather – so we missed the launch by 2 weeks (sad face).

Darren had also been to the States before, but for him it was New York. In fact, it was the first time he had left the UK. He visited the Twin Towers (he went in the February of 2001), Times Square, Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty amongst other places. This is him looking cold in New York. You can see the twin towers in the skyline behind him:

Now fast-forward to early 2012. I began to dream again about our honeymoon. At first I wanted to go to New England in Autumn. We researched it, and it was way above our budget. Gutted.

Then we found Complete North America, based in Nottingham where we live. They were brilliant and we found that we could afford to go to the west of the US. So we got to planning our trip.

The dream was alive! The wedding was amazing. The honeymoon was fantastic – you can read more about that particular road trip in other posts to come.

The trouble with travelling is that once you start you can’t stop. It is way worse than Pringles. I had the USA bug & couldn’t wait to go back again. I started to dream again and this time, Route 66 was the focus of my attention. I read up all about the Route and its history – I even watched Cars the Movie from Disney Pixar. Anything that had a link to Route 66, I lapped up.

Then we booked it! In January 2013, we booked our Route 66 journey for September 2013. We were going Stateside again! I spent the next 8 months on Google maps, following the Route and checking out what we simply must see (what can I say – I’m a total geek. I love maps and learning and reading and studying and all that jazz).

Needless to say, it was fabulous. We had an incredible time, saw some amazing things, met some fascinating people and took thousands of photos.

So, long story short – except it’s too late as you’ve already read this far – our passion for road-tripping in the USA was born. We have clocked up thousands of miles driving across the country and have visited 11 States in 2 years. It is an incredible country – so diverse and so so huge!

I love stories and photographs, and we were so pleased with the pictures that we took. We wanted to share those stories and photographs with you wonderful people and give you the opportunity to own them yourselves to make your homes all pretty with reminders of where you’ve been or where you dream of going.

What follows are the stories from those road trips. I shall start with Route 66 as it lends itself to story in such a beautiful way. I hope you enjoy reading – and I hope it will inspire you to get road-tripping yourself!

There will be stories from the road as well as features about destinations – and there will even be dreams – what we’re hoping to do in the future.